A bit of chewy Quick Cryptic for the Boxing Day holiday today. It took me 6:47 which is about 1 1/2 minutes over average for me. My LOI 17D was my biggest hold-up. Did you spot the Nina (see below)? Thank-you Cheeko. How did you all get on?
Fortnightly Weekend Quick Cryptic. This time it is my turn to provide the extra weekend entertainment. You can find the crossword entitled “Boxing Day” here. Can you find the thematic references? If you are interested in trying our previous offerings you can find an index to all 145 here.
Definitions underlined in bold italics, (Abc)* indicating anagram of Abc, {deletions} and [] other indicators.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | Blank husband overwhelmed by ingenuity and energy (5) |
| WHITE – H (husband) in [overwhelmed by] WIT (ingenuity) + E (energy). “blank” = “white” is a bit of stretch for me and the surface seems a bit opaque. Not my favourite clue of the day. What have I missed? | |
| 4 | Female, insulated, became weak (7) |
| FLAGGED – F (female) + LAGGED (insulated). | |
| 8 | Girl temporarily in Oz crashed hotrod back in Sydney (7) |
| DOROTHY – (hotrod)* [crashed] + last letter of SydneY. As in the wizard of Oz, not Australia. | |
| 9 | Tendon function beginning to weaken (5) |
| SINEW – SINE (mathematical function) + first letter of Weaken. Nice surface. | |
| 10 | Turbocharger components adapted on lorries etc (12) |
| INTERCOOLERS – [adapted] (on lorries etc)*. I didn’t know they were part of turbochargers, but the anagram and checkers left no doubt. | |
| 12 | Taunting grown-up about his banal logic, essentially (6) |
| GIBING – BIG (grown-up) [about] -> GIB + middle letters [essentially] of hIs baNal loGic. | |
| 13 | District inside NYC border welcomes patrols every so often (6) |
| HARLEM – Alternate letters [every so often] of pAtRoLs in HEM (border). | |
| 16 | Child on back by you (6,6) |
| SECOND PERSON -Tricky. It’s SON (child) after [on] SECOND (back, as in nominate) PER (by). | |
| 18 | First-class male spy (5) |
| AGENT – A (first-class) + GENT (male). | |
| 20 | Society medical officer confronting monarch’s unhealthy habit? (7) |
| SMOKING – S (society) + MO (medical officer) + [confronting] KING (monarch). | |
| 21 | Oriental festival before first of November (7) |
| EASTERN – EASTER (festival) + first letter, [front], of November. | |
| 22 | John initially rallies following loud defeat (5) |
| FLOOR – F (forte; loud) + LOO (John in US vernacular) + first letter [initially] of Rallies. | |
| Down | |
|---|---|
| 1 | Wife, say, adopting twin daughters in marriage (7) |
| WEDDING – DD (daughter twice; daughters) + IN, all in W (wife) + EG (for example; say). Easier to biff than parse, I think. | |
| 2 | Sensitivity shown by angry Blairite about Republican head (13) |
| IRRITABLENESS – R (republican) in [angry] (Blairite)* + NESS (head). Angry as an anagram indicator? I don’t remember seeing that before. Another for the long list of them to remember. | |
| 3 | Participate in nothing after internet breaks (5,4) |
| ENTER INTO – (internet)* [breaks] + O (0; nothing). | |
| 4 | Fishing tackle’s fine line brought up fish (3,3) |
| FLY ROD – F (fine) + L (line) + DORY (fish) [brought up] -> YROD. | |
| 5 | Fool starts off Alexei Sayle Show (3) |
| ASS – Initial letters, [starts off], of Alexia Sayle Show, | |
| 6 | Large mission evolves around European supreme commander (13) |
| GENERALISSIMO – E (European) in (large mission)* [evolves]. | |
| 7 | Miserable, as is this clue (4) |
| DOWN – Double definition. | |
| 11 | Stops announcement of holiday cancellation? (6,3) |
| LEAVES OFF – Double definition, the second a cryptic hint. | |
| 14 | Executive chap, one getting more mature (7) |
| MANAGER – MAN (chap) + AGER (one getting more mature). I’ve maybe not looked carefully enough, but I can’t see that meaning of AGER in the usual dictionaries. | |
| 15 | Inventor is getting stuck into English academic (6) |
| EDISON – IS in [getting stuck into] E (English) + DON (academic). | |
| 17 | Seal off earth’s mantle (4) |
| CAPE – CAP (seal off) + E (earth; pin in an electrical plug). My LOI. | |
| 19 | Digital item ultimately put to use (3) |
| TOE – Last letters of, [ultimately], puT tO usE. | |
I got into the SCC early and am lounging in a comfy chair.
This one (22:39) took me only a few minutes less than the main puzzle, so I for one found it tough.
BLANK comes from French ‘blanc’ (from the German further back), so had the meaning of white originally. I guess, in modern parlance, ‘blank page’ more or less covers it.
CAPE was also my LOI and I didn’t see how the wordplay worked, just that a mantle was a CAPE. Pleased it was all green. Belated happy Christmas to all.
Another DNF for me – my second this week. I used aids for CAPE, the NHO INTERCOOLERS, and GIBING – a word I doubt I have ever seen written down before. I used Reveal for SECOND PERSON as I could make no sense of the clue and once I had seen that BEYOND REASON fitted the checkers I couldn’t see past it. Obviously it wasn’t correct but the term seemed particularly apt in the circumstances.
DNF. Not a good day. I was happy that I’d spent less time than anticipated on my LOI CAPE, only to see I had a sloppy typo for MANAGER and I didn’t spot the word pairs.
A pity as I otherwise enjoyed this. The surface for DOROTHY was a real highlight and fooled me until I had some checked letters.
AGER is in Merriam-Webster (OK, not a standard reference for The Times crosswords) for either (1) something that causes ageing, or (2) something which improves with time, the example given being a wine which ages well. “Golden ager” is also in Oxford Dictionaries (online) as: EUPHEMISTIC North American English for “An old person”.
Thanks to John and Cheeko
It doesn’t really matter if AGER is in a dictionary; if AGE is a verb meaning, say, ‘age’, then ‘ager’ is made possible by a word-formation rule: rule/ruler, read/reader, etc. ODE rather gratuitously lists lots of -er derivatives, but not e.g. extruder, resenter. But something that extrudes is an extruder, someone who resents is a resenter, etc.
Sorry I find this dubious. So someone who accelerates is an accelerator? I’m sure there are many more potential nonsenses out there. Someone who lights a fire is a lighter? And so on. Humph.
Collins
LIGHTER, def. 2: “a person or thing that ignites something”
Collins online, but American English
ACCELERATOR, “1. a person or thing that accelerates or increases the speed of something; specif.: a device, such as the foot throttle of an automobile, for increasing the speed of a machine b. a nerve or muscle that speeds up a body function”
A lighting technician is called a lighter.
http://comparably.com/salaries/salaries-for-lighter
“The average Lighter in the US makes $54,044. Lighters make the most in San Jose, CA at $106,704 averaging total compensation 97% greater than US average.”
OK – well done – so I get no sympathy there, then. However … I feel sure one could find other “ad absurdum” examples – indeed, thank you BR (below).
Curious: none of this (except your first bit) has appeared in my e-mail inbox.
Thanks, yes, I take your point. The verb to the -er noun usually works, but not always. In addition to Martinů’s examples, the one that I thought of was “die”. Is someone who is dying a “dier”?
Is life worth living?
Depends on the liver.
“Dier” is ambiguous (“dyer”?). But the suffix works with any verb, within a context that makes its referent clear.
Yes that’s a lovely double entendre, surely illustrating my point. Thank you.
Au contraire. My point is that although people don’t normally say “liver” for “one who lives,” if you so in a context that makes that meaning implicit, it’s understood.
Oh. Sorry I misunderstood you. So is someone who cooks, a cooker?
Hooray – excellent – thank you, BR!
7.19 today, help up slightly by failing to parse CAPE, which went in with a shrug and happily turned out to be right.
A lot of biffing today and there were a few that I didn’t go back to parse – FLY ROD, IRRITABLENESS and SECOND PERSON spring to mind.
After John’s prompt I did actually see the nina for once.
Started with WHITE and finished with CAPE in 8.59.
Thanks to John and Cheeko
I managed just over half before I gave up and started revealing words.
I was brought low by some “crossword land” clueing that might be familiar from the 15×15 but I don’t recall from my couple of hundred concises (by = PER, society = S, John = LOO, head = NESS, essentially = middle letters). All of which unfortunately coincided with biff-proof definitions.
To be fair I can attest that all the above have appeared in these QCs before. (Which is not the same as …… !)
19:01 Cape from alphabet trawl then PDM. Breaks off got me in a muddle until I got intercooler and second person was another PDM. Lots of long anagramss.
Chewy indeed.
TaJAC
DNF. Missed CAPE and GIBING.
Some tough vocab, INTERCOOLERS took some figuring out, and not a fan of AGER. It’s words like that that made me give up on scrabble.
Liked LEAVES OFF.
8.03
FLY ROD caused me issues at the end but otherwise no major hold ups. WEDDING was neat. Thanks Cheeko/John.
DNF. Lots of clearing up to do after usual festive activities and strewn wrapping paper that missed the bin bag. A curious mixture of write-ins and totally perplexing which tried my patience and I pulled stumps at 30 mins and walked into the kitchen for a coffee and yet one more minced pie.
Happy Boxing day . Thanks John.
DNF, and most of my comments/failings already mentioned by others – and only 12 comments in too. The missing words were INTERCOOLERS (NHO, and perhaps slightly specialised GK for a QC?), CAPE (perhaps should have biffed this but E for earth with no indication of “take the first letter” was beyond me), and GIBING, which I have not seen with that spelling – if I was ever to use the word I think I would start it with a J. But even before that I was struggling: I’m not an angler so FLY ROD did not come to mind easily, SECOND PERSON is all fair enough but took me a long time to see (I never remember all the different ways setters can indicate PER), and like Merlin I’m not a fan of Ager.
I would love to blame a raucous house full of family over the festive season for my failure but I think this one would have proved too much for me even in quieter times. A slight shame, as I have a young relative in the house who might, just, be ready to be introduced to cryptic crosswords. Certainly not this one though – a missed opportunity. Request to our crossword editor – holidays are when the generations are together, so hold off the toughies and give us some more approachable ones so we can pass this wonderful habit down?
Many thanks John for the blog and all your work behind the scenes to keep this site going, especially recently.
As with you CS – a young grandson who is of an age to start genuinely enjoying cryptics – and today was not the day to introduce him to the joys… a pity as at times like this, such moves can be made almost as if by chance…
I would second your request!
20:31. All green eventually and all parsed except SECOND PERSON. LOI CAPE which looks an easy one looking back. I liked DOROTHY and LEAVES OFF.
Thanks to Cheeko for a puzzle with some tough clues and thank you John for the blog
I finished this in 13 minutes, about my average. My only real concern was GIBING spelt without a J; but the parsing was clear.
So no negative comments from me.
I had to carefully write out the anagram fodder to get INTERCOOLERS but the word emerged easily enough.
LOI LEAVES OFF. COD to DOROTHY.
David
I believe GIBE with a G is the original spelling, though it’s usually spelt with a J nowadays.
DNF. Needed aids for GIBING and INTERCOOLER.
Thanks John and Cheeko
DNF. Looked up INTERCOOLERS (NHO), SECOND PERSON, and GIBING but maybe cd have solved the latter if I had been more patient. Also failed on CAPE.
Quite pleased to get GENERALISSIMO, EDISON and FLOOR. Yes, liked DOROTHY.
Thanks vm, John. Too chewy for me.
Never on this setter’s wavelength. Got most of it but not without queries and MERs so thank you for explanations, John – whose august, even holy name is sadly and regrettably defiled in the US and hence too often in crosswords here. NHO INTERCOOLERS or even FLY ROD, and MER at “getting more mature” = AGER – really? Biffed GIBING but no idea how it worked.
Golly seal off = CAP is difficult.
When I try to say that common Americanisms of that kind (john = can = lavatory) should not be in The Times crossword I get shouted at. But, I still think it should be so 🙂
Another technical DNF.
Very tricky.
Thanks for the blog John.
Pretty straightforward for a Cheeko, I thought. My only real holdup was over GIBING, where I haven’t seen that spelling before and couldn’t parse initially. Of course, I missed the Nina, until prompted to look for it. I hope Ulaca’s right about the main puzzle, as dismantling the turkey and re-arranging the fridge will take most of the rest of the morning.
25:14. A couple of aids required to finish this toughie. INTERCOOLERS, GIBING (not J?), FLY ROD, CAPE, FLOOR, MANAGER all problematic. Very hard for a QC.
I found this incredibly difficult: the clue structures seemed very convoluted but maybe my brain is suffering from Christmas Day excess. Never heard of INTERCOOLER but guessed it right. Had no idea how GIBING parsed and biffed SECOND PERSON. Finally finished in about 28 minutes but did not enjoy.
Not a QC. How on earth are you supposed to work out from John initially that the reference is a US meaning. Sorry but I think this was a poor clue or too difficult for a QC. So were many of the others. Feeling very grumpy today 😄
DNF
Well into the SCC before running aground on the last 2. Couldn’t figure out what was going on with either of CAPE or SECOND PERSON.
Very hard or though I found manager easy enough. Missed intercooler despite seeing it on the back of many a vehicle in traffic jams in days gone by.
Ass smoking agent. I wonder where that what three words location is? I checked, it doesn’t exist.
A bit too 15×15 for me.
22:19 after my first attempt at the earth’s mantle went in with a simple nho “lase” as the rest of puzzle had been stretching and I didn’t want to alphatrawl -A-E. Overall it left a bad taste; nho intercoolers and only half-parsed second-person postsolve but can’t remember seeing “by=per” before. Other clues were complicated in their parsing e.g. wedding, floor.
When I want to challenge myself, and I have the time/willingness to struggle, I simply attempt the 15×15. I expect to be pushed in the QC once in a while but Cheeko has consistently been time-consuming and I wonder why he/she is still used in the slot. It’s not like we have a dearth of setters available – I counted over 30 different setters this year. (Edit: this is not to say Cheeko isn’t a decent setter – some of the clueing / surfaces are excellent – only that it all feels beyond my QC expectations).
Today’s expectations were probably not helped by thinking Christmas week might be full of quicker, fun puzzles and not realising we’d get a typical Friday challenge.
Anyway rant over -thanks to JohnI and Cheeko.
I enjoyed this and managed it in 18.50 despite a buzz of Christmas chatter throughout. Some enjoyable PDMs (e.g. GENERALISSIMO, SINEW, HARLEM) and I had no trouble with INTERCOOLERS (I fitted one with a light-pressure turbo to my dear old Saab 900 some years ago and it made a very good car into a magnificent one). I hesitated over the plural, though – I have never had a car with more than one intercooler.
I was thrown at first when irritability didn’t fit and found IRRITABLENESS rather contrived.
Thanks to CHEEKO and JohnI.
Note added: Seeing the comments above I must, for once, have been fairly close to the setter’s wavelength today. Thank goodness it happens occasionally. I have a very chequered history with Cheeko.
Glad it wasn’t just me that found this one tricky! From WHITE to CAPE in 9:54. Thanks Cheeko and John.
DNF. Couldn’t parse white or wedding but biffed them; NHO gibing, the I was not even found by alphabet trawl, and second person passed me by. Hard work on the rest. Perhaps too much Christmas pudding yesterday?
Thanks Cheeko and John. MC & HNY to all.
21.26 for me. Took me ages to work out SECOND PERSON despite having the crossers.
Pi ❤️
For all who thought this too difficult, you should find my “Boxing Day” crossword a bit easier. See the link in the intro.
Probably the first Weekend puzzle I haven’t completed in months. Oh well, thanks for putting it up
Afraid not, John. As a beginner this was tough, but I found yours harder. Perhaps when I’ve worked back through the first 70 I’ll be more on the wavelength I’ve only done the most recent 75 so far.
Oh dear. Sorry about that. My test solvers didn’t have any difficulties.
21:42
25 minute DNF.
Put NAME for CAPE. Didn’t understand clue at all.
Total waste of time.
Another depressing week with a DNF. I have DNF’d more often this year than the last two! How is that possible?
My heart sank when I saw a Snitch score of 159 but surprisingly all the clues fell into place until only 16a remained. Despite alphabet crawls and revisits it just would not come so I sneaked a look at John’s blog and saw that ‘run’ rather than ‘child’ was the definition after which SECOND PERSON immediately came to mind. There’s a useful lesson there.
COD to HARLEM for the nice misdirection with ‘border’ and I also liked FLOOR.
Thanks to Cheeko and John.
Today’s belated Christmas gift – with the -E-O-D checkers for the first word – my first thoughts would be RECORD or SECOND. I’ve also now added Jackkt’s BEYOND into that part of my mental thesaurus.
Not a QC. Nothing more to say.
FOI DOROTHY
LOI FLOOR
COD WEDDING
TIME 9:38
Found this really tough. Took nearly an hour to get down to just 17d, having been held up by having BREAKS OFF for 11d which didn’t help with the unknown INTERCOOLERS. By that time I couldn’t be bothered to spend more time on a _A_E word, so I bunged in CAGE and then revealed when it was wrong. Oh well, thanks anyway.
Well that got the grey cells firing! Hold-ups included SECOND PERSON, HARLEM, IRRITABLENESS and LOI GIBING. I’m no petrolhead but somehow INTERCOOLERS was a write-in. COD FLOOR – completely misdirected – thought definition was John for far too long 🙄 I always find Cheeko QCs challenging but enjoyable and this was no exception. Many thanks for the blog John.
7:37. Thought easier than the average time suggested. I got the long clues pretty quickly which definitely helped. Crossword done, walk done, what to do with the rest of the day?
Once again an offering which is totally unsuitable for less than expert solvers like myself.
Dnf…
We seem to have had some pretty chewy puzzles over the Xmas period. Is this deliberate? Does the editor think we have more time over this period to ponder over them? I’m not sure – but I was defeated by a couple of clues today: 17dn “Cape” and 10ac “Intercoolers”, both which I am sure I would have got if I wasn’t so frazzled and in a rush.
FOI – 1ac “White”
LOI – Dnf
COD – 19dn “Toe”
Thanks as usual!
Well, that was another slow Cheeko special, but not quite as bad as some have been in the past. Helped by owning a Citroën ZX many years ago, which had an intercooler that seemed to take up half the engine bay. Hold ups, in a near 30min solve, included wondering whether Second Season could be a subtle reference to the child in the Bard’s seven ages (spoiler: No), and whether Sale or Lase could be related to mantle (ditto).
CoD, for the parsing challenge, to the fingers and legs crossed, nho Gibing Invariant
17.26 This was mostly fine until I was seriously breeze-blocked by CAPE, which I eventually biffed. Thanks John and Cheeko.
On reading the above we are delighted that we finished, even though deep into the SCC with almost 25 minutes on the clock.
NHO INTERCOOLERS (Himself had).
Needed the blog to parse too many answers in MHO. SECOND PERSON went in, though with a shrug, as did a few others. GIBING did not please. WHITE needed explanation (missed WIT)) as did WEDDING.
LEAVES OFF was not entirely comfortable.
All up, pleased we finished, however cannot say it was an enjoyable undertaking.
On the Eurostar -with a merry and happy Christmas behind us, a short breather until New Year. : )
Thank you Cheeko and John Interrred.
10:36 so I was more or less on Cheeko’s wavelength, though I didn’t spot the Nina. It was INTERCOOLERS that held me up, never seen it. I enjoyed GENERALISSIMO for the way it really did evolve before my mind’s eye. SECOND PERSON my favorite, cunning!
After reading the comments and looking at the snitch, I think I was punching above my weight. Maybe it was all that roast lamb and apple cake yesterday.
Thanks Cheeko and John.
Too difficult for me. Not close to finishing. I now duck out of more quick cryptics than I used to. I still like them though.
Judging from the comments I seem to have got lucky today, finishing in 16:44. Much of it was a struggle, and I was nowhere near parsing SECOND PERSON or FLOOR, both of which were biffed based upon a wild guess as to the definition.
I also agree with Cedric’s comment above: offering this as a puzzle at Christmas seems like a missed opportunity.
Thank you for the blog!
Having trotted through this in a routine 07:27 I was amazed to see that I was 29 of 196 on the leaderboard … having now read the above comments I guess this was a wavelength thing. (And that the great Busman might be slightly jaded today!)
COD WEDDING. Many thanks Cheeko and John.
I’ve always liked Cheeko puzzles. I’m sure you’re right about wavelength – I was saying when I finished it that it was a particularly gentle one from him – then came to a barrage of complaints on the comments, and yet with other QCs I often find there’s maybe one clue that I just can’t get my head around, which can make them more difficult than doing the 15×15. And I’ve never heard of an INTERCOOLER, so it was kind of him to clue it with an anagram.
Gave up after an hour with just over half done.
Amusing for a while but beyond my ability!
Cripes! I did eventually cross the line, but not until 62 minutes had passed. So, not a QC in my opinion.
15 minutes in and I had only five clues written in, so I knew a rough ride was in store. Virtually nothing came easily and, from the perspective of this non-elite solver, the wording of several clues seemed overly obtuse at this level.
I wonder why Cheeko persists in not moderating his setting for the target QC audience. The novelty of being hit for six by this setter has long since worn off.
FOI: ASS
LOI: CAPE
CoD: HARLEM
Many thanks to John for the blog.
Another 2 hour plus attempt at a 15 x 15. DNF by 3, all of which were perfectly gettable.
A truly gruesome day for me. No progress, no enjoyment, no confidence. Doing a cryptic feels like wading through a bog at the moment.
12:14
Late to this party due to excessively busy festivities. I had (accidentally) seen the Quitch already for this puzzle so was expecting a stinker. It was only really the NW corner that held me up, where I hadn’t heard of INTERCOOLERS and needed the I to have enough checkers to make an educated guess. Not really aware of GIBING beginning with a G rather than a J.
Thanks John and Cheeko